3 December 2015

Ordinariate Use (10)

The 'Rubrical Directory' to our Missal (Paragraph 11) provides that "another cleric or even an instituted Acolyte may serve the subdiaconal ministry and read the Epistle".

Nice to have this splendid encouragement for restoring the proper old High Mass with the three Sacred Ministers walking one behind another up the church "just like a train", as one very approving girl at S Thomas's commented.

Could be the first mention of Hypodiakonia in a Roman document since the 1960s?

Priests are clerics: so a spare priest could "Do subdeacon". How delightfully flexible we are in the Ordinariate. Since this is possible, ex analogia a presbyter could also deacon.

I have to say I strongly disapprove of priests "doubling up" as clerks in lesser orders. A priest should be celebrant, not deacon. That is a deacon's job. Similarly, a subdeacon should be subdeacon, not a deacon, and certainly not a priest. Now, if concelebration were more common in traditional circles, all those priests might be put to better use...

Concelebration without a bishop should be more of a concern than a priest carrying out the liturgy of a lesser order...which said priest has already received. When a presbyter functions as a deacon (or even as an acolyte for a brother priest in a low Mass) he is acting in a role for which he was instituted before his priestly ordination. Why should there be any disapproval of this. But priests who concelebrate without the bishop are acting as though the priesthood is shared solely among presbyters, and does not have it source in the bishop who is the head of the particular church. This need to have a bishop as the head of the particular church was one of the reasons cited by Msgr. Steenson in his explanation of his request for retirement as ordinary so that bishop-elect Lopes could be appointed.

But concelebration, even among priests, is more natural and liturgical than low Mass. Low Mass is, to me, like an autistic child in a corner, rocking back and forth in some corner with a manual on battery serial numbers. A concelebrated service, with a choir, taperers, four subdeacons, &c, even if without a bishop, might seem a "defective" service because there is no bishop but more in keeping with tradition as necessity allows. And in a cathedral church the dean and succentor would take the bishop's place on most days anyway...

As Fr Hunwicke says about the Breviary hymns, rightly restored (for the most part) at the Second Vatican Council, so I say thank God low Mass was abolished by that august assembly; even if I'd have changed many aspects of those reforms.

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis.